Furthermore, he fails to understand that while a project to improve the area around the Manuka Oval may well have merit, if properly designed, the "unsolicited" proposal by Grocon/GWS is viewed by most Canberrans with grave suspicion, due to its similarity to a proposal the ACT government put forward that was firmly rejected a short time ago, and to the fact that more than one ex-ACT government staffer appears to have been involved in the design of the new proposal.

Murray Upton, Belconnen

Of the articles written in response to the unsolicited Manuka Green proposal, David Cooke's is the least intelligent.

Writing "from afar", Cooke compares the suburb of Manuka with the derelict, crime-ridden area of East Manchester in the 1990s and a "struggling downtown area" of Sacramento. With minimal research, he would realise Manuka is neither of these, but a beautiful, vibrant part of Canberra.

Amongst other icons, it incorporates Canberra's elegant art deco pool, the internationally accredited English-French Telopea School and neighbouring Telopea Park, all of which would be severely degraded by the Manuka Green proposal.

Then there is Manuka Oval, arguably Australia's most beautiful cricket ground, which now hosts occasional AFL games (Cooke's comparison of Manuka with Adelaide Oval, situated in a large open space on the riverbank, is fatuous).

Manuka Oval is seldom filled, but this might change when the first Test match is played there in 2018. It is a straightforward project to increase the ground's capacity and improve its facilities in line with realistic crowd and player expectations.

A well-designed upgrade is a more rational option than destroying the heart of Manuka for the financial benefit of non-ACT developers.

John Farnan, Red Hill

Jim Coats (Letters, April 22) should have done a bit of checking before criticising Michael Gordon's hyphenation.

"Governor-General" is the correct spelling in Australia (gg.gov.au). And many usage guides recommend using a hyphen between an adjective and a noun when used to form a modifier that's placed before another noun. So "10-minute" and "76-day" would be preferred in front of a noun.

The principles are explained well in The Cambridge Guide to Australian English Usage. Many people now omit these hyphens, but I think they make the meaning clearer – for example, to distinguish "a man-eating fish" from "a man eating fish".

Howard Silcock, Narrabundah

Walking through the Civic centre on Friday was a depressing sight, as, with the roar of the chainsaws, the perfectly healthy trees outside the Jolimont Centre were felled. The rape of Northbourne Avenue has begun. If they had nothing to fear, why could the government not wait another six months for the local election to tell them whether or not this is what Canberrans wanted? Once the trees are gone, they cannot be replanted to the same stage in my lifetime. That this singular act of environmental vandalism is being carried out at the behest of the sole representative of the ACT Greens is particularly galling.

Michael C. Stevenson, Narrabundah

The ACT government had a very novel way of celebrating Earth Day last week. This year the Earth Day theme is "Trees for the Earth" and the aim was to plant 3billion trees to assist with climate change. The ACT government started chopping down trees in Northbourne Avenue on Friday, rather than planting them. Not the best activity to celebrate Earth Day in my opinion.

Anne Balcomb, Weston

The triad of obesity, type-2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease constitutes the metabolic syndrome, which is the most prominent pandemic threatening population health in industrialised societies ("Research raises hope of reversing type-2 diabetes", April 23, p18).

A clinical trial by Professor Taylor and his team in Newcastle University, UK, studied the effects of severe calorie restriction for eight weeks on people who had lived with type-2 diabetes for up to 23 years, resulting in a remission lasting six months. Australian Aborigines have a high incidence of the metabolic syndrome when they adopt the Western habit of over-nutrition and under-activity, with high alcohol intake.

In 1984, Kerin O'Dea, now professor of population health and nutrition in the University of South Australia, conducted a classic study on 14 full-blood Aborigines who agreed, with the help of Aboriginal elders, to travel to remote areas for seven weeks, eating only what they hunted and collected, in contrast to their urbanised diet, which was high in flour, sugar, rice, cheap fatty meat and carbonated and alcoholic drinks.

The result of the trial was a halving of calorie intake, an average weight reduction of eight kilograms, falls in blood pressure, fasting-insulin and blood-sugar levels, and great improvement in morale. Although small, these trials support a drastic change to industrialised lifestyles, starting in childhood, requiring increased exercise, smaller intake of low-satiety refined carbohydrates, sugar taxation and daily intake of more fresh fruit and vegetables. Historically, Leonardo da Vinci's notebook recommended "only eat when hungry" – seldom followed today.

Bryan Furnass, Hughes

I have always had a number of birthday cards sent to me from England by family and friends. Over the years, most of these have arrived on the day of my birthday, April 18, or on the day either side of it. However, this year has been quite different, as many of them have arrived significantly later.

The franking dates range from April 11 to 13 and the cards have arrived on April 21 or 22. Does this mean that when overseas mail arrives at Australia Post, it is subject to the new four-day delivery rule? Also, is post from Australia to overseas subject to the four days before it is sent out of Australia?

It does not appear that Australia Post's service is going to get any better.

Eileen J. Webb, Fadden

Thank you, Richard Denniss ("Surplus to requirements", Forum, April 23, p8) for a timely commentary on the long-term problems from the short-term mantra of "a balanced budget". Such claims reduce government to an accountant's exercise of numbers in and out.

Government is about providing services to the people of Australia and finding the revenue to do this. Not ignoring multinationals shifting their profits overseas through transfer pricing, nor other innovative sources of income like a (Tobin) tax on those foreign exchange dealings.

The Reserve Bank estimated foreign exchange turnover in April 2013 averaged $US182 billion a day. By contrast, the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade reported that Australia's two-way trade in 2012 was $623.8 billion, or about 3 days forex trading.

Last year, your organisation estimated that a Tobin tax in Australia could collect $1 billion annually. That's the revenue needed: for our education, aged care, health and foreign aid. Taxes help build a better Australia.

Peter Graves, Curtin

I would so love to know why the banks will cop paying $120 million for an ASIC investigation, while a royal commission, with less powers, paid for by the taxpayer has them snorting with rage and threatening to spend millions of their customers' dosh to stop it.

As for their reputations, and the threat that global big money will run away at the slightest hint of shonkiness; I would have thought exactly the opposite. Big money runs away from tight regulation and high standards of probity.

Big money will run away, from the threat of having to be honest and accountable.

S.W. Davey, Torrens

I was gobsmacked when I heard Malcolm Turnbull, with absolutely no shame, criticise Labor's stance on negative gearing on the grounds that it will lead to house prices falling. Isn't that exactly what we want, or does he despise our young, most of whom, unlike persons of his generation, will never be able to afford a house if prices do not drop drastically?

I paid $40,000 for my three-bedroom house on a 820-square-metre block in 1980, and according to the Reserve Bank inflation calculator that was only the equivalent today to about $164,000.

The same house would cost at least $500,000 today. If a political party wants my vote it will abolish all forms of negative gearing, prohibit foreigners buying Australian houses and cease immigration entirely. That may make housing affordable again, and for that reason I ask all persons who love their children and grandchildren to, before casting your votes, think about their quality of life rather than the value of your property.

Nancy Tidfy, Chisholm

Oh dear. H. Ronald is under heavy fire again. D. J. Taylor (Letters, April 22) objects to his/her "insulting terms" such as "intellectually fragile feminists" and David Grant (Letters, April 22) says H encourages the singing of songs promoting the subjugation of women for carnal purposes. If the prissy pair got around a bit more, they would know that the bawdy song canon contains more songs and monologues deriding sexually active males than it does women.

At its head would be Eskimo Nell, an epic ribald poem somewhat less nuanced than those of English literature's 17th century metaphysical poets who enjoyed discussing their paramour's fleas and private parts.

It was written by the late great novelist, satirist, playwright, champion of women's rights and MP for Oxford University A.P. Herbert, who was instrumental in the passing of the 1937 Matrimonial Causes Act that put men and women on an equal footing in divorce cases.

And claiming profane songs promote the subjugation of women is as dumb as saying singing Onward Christian Soldiers makes one want to kill a Muslim. The only thing a rousing bawdy song – or any lustily sung song for that matter – encourages is a therapeutic feeling of companionship with one's fellow singers. Ask any member of a choir, congregation or rugby club.

Bill Deane, Chapman

As the politicians have gone into election mode, it is appropriate to recall these words by Alexander Tyler, a Scottish history professor in 1887: "A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship."

Bruce A. Peterson, Kambah

I couldn't agree more with Rod Holesgrove (Letters, April 25) who argued that the future is looking grim if we don't act now on climate change. Likewise, Stuart Walkley (Letters, April 25) was right to argue that the election should not be about the ABCC but about the environment. He wanted restoration of our land to be the priority but other environmental issues such as climate change could also take precedence.

Underlying all our environmental problems is overpopulation, that is, too many people for the resources available or too little land, water and air to absorb our wastes. Any increase in population now comes at a cost, particularly habitat for other species. And the more people there are, the more greenhouse emissions and the greater the difficulty in achieving our emission reduction targets.

Environment Minister Greg Hunt has just been to New York to sign the Paris Agreement. He was excluded, however, from meetings of the "high ambition coalition", presumably because our ambition was too low. As Holesgrove said, we have to act on climate change. In the coming election, my preferences will go according to the strength of a party's or individual candidate's climate policies. If they can also offer a policy of population stabilisation, they really will be assured of my vote.

Jenny Goldie, Michelago, NSW

In her article, "Watchdog lashes climate politics" (April 22, p4), Clare Colley quotes the ACT's new Commissioner for Sustainability and the Environment, Kate Auty, as saying: "Both sides of federal politics are ignoring public interest in the environment and climate change at their own peril in the lead-up to theelection."

When she takes up her new post in May, we should welcome her into our community!

Australia, the most affluent of countries, operates on a depletion economy that leaves destruction in its wake.

Yet our political leaders are people who are driven by a terrible sense of deficiency. When the last tree is cut, the last fish is caught, and the last river is polluted; when to breathe the air is sickening, they will realise, too late, that wealth is not in bank accounts and that we can't eat money.

In an election year, I hope Auty will begin by urging young people to enrol to vote and ask that, before casting their precious vote, they listen carefully to what their world here in Australia is trying to tell them.

I agree with her that the major political parties are ignoring the urgency and the threat to our existence. As a grandmother, I plead with young Australians to vote carefully at the next election, before their future and that of their children is destroyed.

My generation has failed. We did not realise how urgent this was and voted for eating money. It is almost too late now, but not if young Australians move to a new way of thinking and voting.

Elizabeth Thurbon, Belconnen

David Pope's editorial cartoon, "Mother earth playing cards against capitalists" (Times2, April 22, p1), was spot on. Unfortunately, in reality, the capitalists are winning, with dire consequences for us all. The cartoon could have been the cover for Naomi Klein's book, This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs the Climate.

Max Jensen, Chifley

MISSION IMPOSSIBLE

Alan Shroot (Letters, April 22) says Hamas is "committed to violently destroying Israel and killing or driving out the Jewish people". Given that Israel possesses one of the world's most powerful military forces and has the unconditional backing of the United States, perhaps Shroot could explain how Hamas would go about carrying out this alleged commitment.

Paul Dixon, Fraser

WRONG WAY AROUND

Commonwealth Bank chief Ian Narev's claim of victimisation, delivered to the Australia-Israel Chamber of Commerce, was inverted ("CBA slams 'improper complaints"', BusinessDay, April 22, p11). The issue is complaints of impropriety – gross impropriety – by the bank.

Gary J. Wilson, Macgregor

PARK REINSTATED

Thank-you for publishing my letter a couple of weeks ago about six or eight commercial waste bins being "parked" in a disabled parking spot in Hobart Place in Civic for at least a week and a half. I walked past the spot this morning and they were all gone. The power of the press.

Fintán Ó Laighin, Narrabundah

SAFEGUARD OUR LAND

Huge areas of Australia, such as Cubbie Station, have been sold to foreigners, and more (like S.Kidman and Co) is on the auction block. Products from these lands will be shipped back to China and no tax will be paid. There's a Chinese saying I heard in Vietnam recently, Australia has head in sand, has arse exposed. Come on politicians, follow the example of New Zealand.

Ron Goodwin, Tuross Head, NSW

CUSHION OR COVER-UP?

I bought a plastic pack of strawberries the other day. On the bottom of the pack lay a soft square of black plastic, which is a new addition to the pack. More comfort for the strawberries? Or to frustrate buyers from looking through the bottom, as most buyers do, to check that contents are not already deteriorating?

Bert Castellari, Curtin

TV CREW SELF-SERVING

It didn't take long, did it! ABC correspondent Philip Williams went into bat on behalf of the Channel Nine crew which is clearly identified with a ripper of a mess-up in Lebanon ("60 Minutes crew jailed in Lebanon deserve sympathy, says ABC's Phil Williams", canberratimes.com.au, April 18). Tara Brown's "leadership" during the child retrieval saga was nothing other than self-serving, money-grubbing, vulgar exhibitionism.

Patrick Jones, Griffith

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